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Wednesday, 19 November 2014

X-Wing: Den of Thieves

It was another game of X-Wing at the club yesterday evening. Following on from last weeks gameMartin would use the Empire and I would remain the Rebels.

As we had not played for months last week we were quite conservative with our forces picking little in the way of upgrades to our ships. Not so this time, as well as each of us rolling out the Big Guns we also purchased quite a few upgrades.

I chose to use a YT-1300 upgraded to the Millennium Falcon flown by Chewbacca with a Navigator and Mercenary Co-pilot. This was escorted by a Red Squadron X-Wing with the R2-D2 upgrade and a Grey Squadron Y-Wing with the Ion Cannon upgrade.

Martin used a Lambda class flown by Captain Yorr with a Mercenary Co-pilot, two Gamma Squadron Tie-Bombers each with Proton Torpedoes and two Black Squadron Tie Fighters each with the Veteran Instincts pilot upgrade.

We would be playing the Den of Thieves mission. Martin set up his two Tie Bombers as the escorts to herd the cargo pods, each supported by a Tie Fighter, the Lambda provided a base of fire in the centre.

I made the Millennium Falcon the Smuggler and deployed that, with the Y-Wing on the Rebel edge, while the lone X-Wing attacked from the flank.

The X-Wing was soon engaged with both Tie Fighters but R2-D2 put in a sterling performance and kept the shields up. The Millennium Falcon went straight for the closest cargo pod and fluked the first die roll capturing it immediately.

We soon ended up with quite a log jam centred on the large models of the Lambda and the Millennium Falcon. This meant that there was a couple of turns of inactivity in that quadrant as we repeatedly bumped each other.

It was at this stage that the shields were stripped from the Y-Wing and it was ripe for a smack of Proton Torpedoes from the Tie Bomber, after the explosions had cleared there was one hull point remaining, the Ion Cannon was gone and sharp turns now counted as a 'red' manoeuvre!

The Imperial were not faring much better though and the damage was racking up on both sides. The Wookie was certainly worth his points though, shrugging off two critical hits on the Millennium Falcon.

By this time one of the Tie Bombers had ushered its charge off the Rebel board edge.

My Y-Wing limped out of the combat, but the X-Wing and Millennium Falcon kept up pursuit of the remaining cargo pod. But, like a doofus I had forgotten to switch the Smuggler token from the Millennium Falcon to the X-Wing so left myself a very narrow window of opportunity for bagging the last cargo pod.

Rather than two changes to score a un-saved critical I only made one and the cargo pod drifted off the Rebel edge of it's own volition. Bugger!

Just like last time a great game that went down to the wire, but again Martin was the victor. Another game of X-Wing on Thursday with Greg and Ben, hopefully Quinton will make that too.

Next Tuesday it's back to "To The Strongest!" for Martin and I. In more good news I have got the mojo back and started painting again, hopefully pictures at the weekend.